The Story of Two People and Their Path to Financial Independence

FinCon

We are on the plane ride back home from FinCon. It’s just kind of settling in:

All the great things we read, and learned.

All the great people we met.

All the fantastic friends that we reunited with.

All the great beers that we drank.

Mainly, we spent the entire time studiously listening to every possible lecture, and talking to every possible sponsor in the Expo Hall. We were in bed by 9 every night and up at 6 ready to take on the new day. If you hear any stories about us drinking massive quantities of beer, loudly laughing and yelling all hours of the night while sitting in a giant inflatable pink flamingo, it’s all lies. I swear. Honest.

The most exciting part of the whole thing? The movie trailer for the new documentary about FIRE. If you haven’t seen it, where have you been????

Also, they are running a kickstarter campaign to get the funds to finish the project. If you feel so inclined, help them out, we did.

We also got to meet a bunch of people on the PoF cruise to Cuba the four days prior to the conference. We met so many fantastic and fascinating people on this cruise as well. Again, our love and respect goes out to each and every one of you! You have enriched our lives, and we can only hope that we return a small portion of the favor.

That’s it, that’s the entire recap?

So, yes, FinCon was great. It was amazing to see all our old friends, and meeting tons of new awesome folks. Too many to name and list, but know that each of you are a welcome addition to our lives. You know who you are and we love each and every one of you.

But, seeing how everyone and their brother is going to be posting about all the great people they met and all the experiences they had, we’re going the complete opposite direction. You’ll be able to piece together what our week consisted of through all the other posts.

There are several people that we would have loved to have present, but they were busy with other things. So, I’d like to take some time, a smidge of artistic license, and a little imagination to figure out what the hell they were doing that was so important they couldn’t come and hang out with all of us in Orlando this past week.

Here goes nothing:

Countdown to FI ended up berating someone at the grocery store for spending $3.50 on a can of beans when there was a 2 for $.50 coupon available. Rumor has it they are still locked in a holding cell trying to determine the 10th change to their FI plans this year.

After 3 months of relative quiet, the Groovies’fight-o-meter exploded with activity. Mrs. Groovy tore down the Groovy Ranch in a fit of rage, screaming “You wanna talk Trash?? Talk about this Trash!!!!”. Mr. Groovy was left behind to clean up the mess as he spent the week licking his wounds and plotting his revenge. She was last seen rampaging through the Appalachian mountains in Southern West Virginia, not unlike the Tasmanian Devil.

After being on a train for the last month, Fritz from The Retirement Manifesto was not able to assimilate to life outside of a metal tube on wheels. He instantly jumped back on a train, and rode as far north as he possibly could. When the railway stopped, he stripped naked and dove into the Arctic Ocean yelling something about swimming to see Santa Claus.

Tonya from Budget and the Beach was busy attempting to move Heaven and Earth to create a beach in Idaho. Apparently creating a beach in the middle of the Rocky mountains takes a little more effort than expected. Like most construction plans, it’s taking twice as long as promised and three times the budget.

Brendan from Take Charge of your Money spent last week wrangling Great White sharks off the coast of The Cape of Good Hope. He was attempting to train one to take him to Orlando, only to be bucked off his trusty steed a few miles off the coast of Florida and picked up by the Coast Guard. They forced him to return home. Apparently entering the country riding Great White is forbidden, who knew?

After buying massive amounts of BitCoin from vending machines in bars across the country, Mr. Pie retired to his end-of-the-world bunker. He is currently embarrassed to show his face after the plummet in value since the beginning of the year.

My Sons Father spent the week gathering together a Lego army to invade their neighbor’s house in a failed attempt at a hostile take-over. Upon the failure, he decided against coming face to face with contenders for his title of “The World’s Worst Blogger“.

JL Collins needed to set up his twitter account before he could come. So, he spent the week attempting to figure out the twitterverse. He eventually figured it out, on Sunday… the day after FinCon ended. Check him out!

Millennial Revolution finally hit their breaking point with traveling. Fed up, their house-horniness got the best of them and they closed on their first house, a beautiful 6,000 sqft McMansion in the outskirts of Toronto.

Happy Philosopher has plenty of holes in his jeans from his no purchase year. It’s begun to wear on his confidence and he’s now only showing his face at night during his side-hustle as a tooth fairy. He was running around sprinkling quarters on pillows throughout the land.

Mr. Tako was stuck in his house with spreadsheets attempting to figure out whether a 3-D printer was worth while. Once he decided it was, he proceeded to print himself all the bowls and utensils needed in order to perfect his salsa recipe.

Anyone else that we missed that was busy during the week of FinCon? What were they up to???

See all of you next year?

After all the excitement from last week, we’re hoping to see everyone again next year. When we meet again, all the new friends will be old friends, and there will be room for even more new friends!

We’re also open to seeing everyone more often than once a year. So, hit us up! Let’s make it happen!!! We’ll grab a couple beers!

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38 Comments

Turns out we had to make several decisions about the build while you were whooping it up in FL, so it was the right choice. Still, we missed you and we’re honored you were thinking of us.
(Mrs Groovy, now searching for pink flamingos and leftover FinCon bling on eBay)Mrs. Groovy recently posted…It’s Still the Same Old Story

Oh Jebus, you had to go there didn’t you … you just couldn’t help yourself?

I have to imagine she missed FinCon because she was wrapped in several sheets of protective bubble wrap. Shaking in her $10MM Panic Room attempting to avoid all the scary life experiences that she has been told about.

Beyond that, she was probably gallivanting around in her private jet counting all the money she made from her book that tells everyone else to keep working, so the lines are shorter on her vacations.

Yeah, it was pretty disgusting. It was really eye-opening to see how these people cause a stir. They terrify everyone. I think that is part of the spread of this whole FIRE thing. It’s possible for anyone, if you’re smart about it.

Haha! Love it. Such a clever post. The neighbors house was just proof of concept, I want nothing short of world domination for me and my Lego army.

On a serious note, that FIRE documentary looks amazing! After watching the Minimalists documentary last year, I remember thinking, someone should do the same thing about the FIRE community. Can’t wait for it to be finished, heading over to their kick starter campaign now.

Fantastic meeting you as well. It was a lot of fun, and it’s always good to put a face with a name. It’s funny, after meeting people in person you can actually start to see them reading you their articles, and you can see their sense of humor. HA

Glad I was there chillin’ on the pink flamingo with two imposters wearing Waffles on Wednesday badges. Who knows what kind of crazy adventures I might have had if I didn’t go to FinCon. I might have been kidnapped by a pair of plastic dinosaurs and dangled off a cliff while Mr. 1500 cackled in the background…

Too bad I missed hanging out with you guys since you were in the conferences all day and went to bed early every night. The couple wearing your badges and having a few beers and pizza were really cool, though..

Great recap! More fun to read than reading about what I missed out on at Fincon. lol! I discovered that beaches in the middle of the high desert is more complicated than I expected. I’ll keep at looking for new contractors and places to dig, but if not…who knows, might have to come back. 🙂 And then go to DC. Why does it keep moving further east?!?! ugh!

LOL. Man that house-horniness–no one can escape! And if we ever did get that McMansion, I’d SO pick Portugal over Toronto. I’m a HUGE wimp now–can’t stand the snow (don’t tell anyone, or my badge of Canadian-ness will get revoked).

Sorry to have missed you guys at FinCon! Thanks for posting the “Math That Shit Up” sticker! That gives me every time 🙂

HOW did you know? Santa must have told my secret (at least he didn’t post any nude pics of me). Man, that was a cold swim. I should have gone to Orlando. Sorry I missed you! (And, sorry I’m so late with the comment. Kinda behind on my screen time, because I’m retired and I decided to ride a mountain bike in Tennessee instead!). Hope to see you next year!